Andrea Stocco
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andreastocco.com
Andrea Stocco
@andreastocco.com
Computational cognitive neuroscience. And also: memory and cognitive architecture. But also: biking & stargazing & horror movies. Opinions are my own, but I do sometimes share them. http://andreastocco.com/
Reposted by Andrea Stocco
ICE deported a woman who owned a home in the US for 30 years. A judge banned ICE from deporting her to Sierra Leone where she had been tortured, so it deported her to Ghana, which kidnapped her and sent her back Sierra Leone anyway. ICE is part of this illegal conspiracy.
November 25, 2025 at 4:40 PM
You can think of decisions as evidence accumulation, and the accumulator as an RL policy. Then, dopamine in the basal ganglia works by dynamically changing policy to maximize reward rate 🤯 A tour de force modeling paper by @tdverstynen.bsky.social and team! journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...
How cortico-basal ganglia-thalamic subnetworks can shift decision policies to increase reward rate
Author summary The task of selecting an action among multiple options can be framed as a process of accumulating streams of evidence, both internal and external, up to a decision threshold. A decision...
journals.plos.org
November 25, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Reposted by Andrea Stocco
Marimar Martinez is a US citizen who was shot by ICE five times in Chicago.

She was then arrested, labelled a “domestic terrorist” and slandered on social media.

All charges against her have been dropped.

In this interview she shows on of the seven holes the ICE agent put in her body.
November 23, 2025 at 6:41 AM
Reposted by Andrea Stocco
I made some tiktoks about how hard it is to see science funding cut and had to block a bunch of folks joyfully and cheerfully celebrating it. Pretty much convinced we have seen a really massive change in the public on science and not convinced it will change back in my lifetime
Just an absolutely gutting essay by Tatiana Schlossberg, a writer, mother of two young children, and cousin of RFK Jr who is dying of leukemia.

www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
November 22, 2025 at 4:44 PM
Reposted by Andrea Stocco
I think that if you actually believe that any of your Harvard Law professors were Communists, you don't understand what Communism is.
Ah yes. Harvard Law School in the early 1990s, well known for its Communist professors.
November 22, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Reposted by Andrea Stocco
The President is a crook —and everyone should understand, when it comes to FEMA, these are taxpayer dollars he’s abusing, this isn’t Trump’s money.

Trump is punishing Blue states and rewarding Red states—and he could not be more transparent about his corruption.
Bomb cyclone FEMA denial stings WA as Trump touts aid to red states
A year after Washington's bomb cyclone, the Trump administration has withheld aid even as the president has bragged about awards to states that voted for him.
www.seattletimes.com
November 21, 2025 at 8:55 PM
Reposted by Andrea Stocco
This is a man whose wife was SHOT IN THE HEAD having to act even-keeled when the President of the United States tries to incite violence against him. Trump has to go, right now.
I've had a missile blow up next to my airplane, been shot at dozens of times by anti-aircraft fire, and launched into orbit — all for my country. I never thought I'd see a President call for my execution.

Trump doesn’t understand the Constitution, and we're all less safe for it.
November 20, 2025 at 11:10 PM
Reposted by Andrea Stocco
Can’t believe the whole country has to suffer through the return of Dickensian childhood diseases because the worst, most ignorant attention-demanders decided other people’s expertise makes them feel bad
November 20, 2025 at 4:19 AM
Reposted by Andrea Stocco
JUST IN: A tidal wave of 30,000 students hit the streets in Charlotte, walking out to confront ICE with sheer numbers and zero hesitation.

This is a generation refusing to be controlled.
November 20, 2025 at 3:52 AM
Studies have also not ruled out that the cause of autism is RFK Jr. The CDC should investigate!
HEADS UP: CDC website now officially asserts that vaccines may cause autism.“Studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities.” Also says the “vaccines do not cause autism” header remains b/c of an agreement with Cassidy.
November 20, 2025 at 3:55 AM
Reposted by Andrea Stocco
One of the giants of social psychology was a serial sexual harasser.

This new report reveals how Miles Hewstone touched, bullied, and sexual harassed numerous women during his 18 years at the University of Oxford. It's amazing how often bullying and sexual harassment go together in academia.
November 19, 2025 at 10:30 PM
Reposted by Andrea Stocco
Getting ready for the upcoming ACIP meeting, I see. If your kids haven’t had their first MMR dose, get it as soon as you can.
CDC has overhauled its website to assert that “the claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim”
November 20, 2025 at 3:25 AM
More fantastic work from Anne's lab on how RL supplements WM during learning!
November 18, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Reposted by Andrea Stocco
My paper is out!
Computational modeling of error patterns during reward-based learning show evidence that habit learning (value free!) supplements working memory in 7 human data sets.
rdcu.be/eQjLN
A habit and working memory model as an alternative account of human reward-based learning
Nature Human Behaviour - In this study, Collins proposes an alternative dual-process (working memory and habit) model of reinforcement learning in humans.
rdcu.be
November 17, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Reposted by Andrea Stocco
When my wife died this year, I found out that a 3 mile ambulance ride in America will cost you $5,886.
Healthcare in America: My father-in-law recently died at a hospital and they mailed him a $123,000 bill
November 16, 2025 at 6:45 PM
Reposted by Andrea Stocco
"What James Watson got wrong about DNA"

By the great Sohini Ramachandran (@sramach.bsky.social) and your boy for The Boston Globe (@bostonglobe.com).

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/14/o...
What James Watson got wrong about DNA - The Boston Globe
The science he helped pioneer consistently undermines his view that genes determine everything about us.
www.bostonglobe.com
November 14, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Reposted by Andrea Stocco
Here’s a story for every national news outlet:

In N.C., churchgoers are literally running into the woods as federal agents descend on the property.

“Inside the church, women and children sobbed as they wondered whether their loved ones had been taken.”

www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politic...
November 16, 2025 at 4:38 AM
Reposted by Andrea Stocco
It took less than 30 seconds for someone to wish death on me for this.
bsky.app/profile/ionf...
November 15, 2025 at 10:40 PM
Reposted by Andrea Stocco
My teenagers can’t get a ticket to the Running Man remake on their own, but sure, they’re consenting adults when it comes to sex.

There’s not enough pepper spray in the world for these creeps
November 15, 2025 at 5:20 PM
Reposted by Andrea Stocco
I'd guess that 85-90% of American scientists would be ineligible for future funding under this law, maybe close to 100% in the R1 universities. So much for funding proposals based on scientific merit.

Apart from being sinophobes, the people pushing this have no clue how science or higher ed works.
“The prohibited activities would include joint research, co-authorship on papers, and advising a foreign graduate student or postdoctoral fellow. The language is retroactive, meaning any interactions during the previous 5 years could make a scientist ineligible for future federal funding.”
U.S. Congress considers sweeping ban on Chinese collaborations
Researchers speak out against proposal that would bar funding for U.S. scientists working with Chinese partners or training Chinese students
www.science.org
November 14, 2025 at 11:31 AM
Reposted by Andrea Stocco
WE WON. I am *begging* you to take note of who did this. *Not* UCLA admin—they’re still scuttling around behind closed doors, attempting to appease—but FACULTY AND STAFF, led by AAUP.
BREAKING: In AAUP et al v. Trump (wall-to-wall union lawsuit challenging the administration’s unlawful use of TItle VI to reshape the University of California system), the faculty and staff of the UC system WON!!!

We were granted our preliminary injunction! @aaup.org
November 15, 2025 at 12:01 AM
*the dog, unflinching* This is for Kristi Noem's puppy
A man in Pennsylvania had been cleaning a shotgun and placed it on the bed. Officers were informed that “a dog had jumped up onto the bed, causing the shotgun to go off, which openly struck the male.”
Dog Accidentally Shoots and Injures a Pennsylvania Man, Police Say
The man had been cleaning a shotgun and placed it on the bed shortly before it was fired. He received treatment at an area hospital.
nyti.ms
November 14, 2025 at 11:29 PM
🎯. No notes.
A handy translation guide for non-academic speakers.
November 14, 2025 at 4:12 PM
Are you listening, Seattle??
And we knew this. This wasn't speculation. We studied it, we had the talking points. We trained volunteers to explain this to people. It's not a surprise. Rich people don't flee places with good quality of life when we increase the quality of life. They might try to cheat us, but they don't leave.
NEW: The first two years of Massachusetts' millionaire tax has raised $3 billion more than expected.

And rather than driving the rich away, IPS researchers found that the number of millionaires has *increased.*

Tax the rich. Greg Ryan in @bloomberg.com:
November 14, 2025 at 4:46 AM